If I had a hammer,
I'd nail your silent face
to the flapper girl's chest
like a yellow corsage, and tear it down;
turn on your receiver, Tupelo Honey
to love him is to know him, tiny dancer,
the boxer, Polly, she's a rainbow zombie
lost in a whiter shade of pale, tangled up in blue
now that I have a reason to believe a change
is gonna come when I paint my masterpiece
as I turn, turn, turn, turning Japanese
rogue children go bang, divine service,
don't pass me by, don't stop,
do you know what I mean,
do it again, cover me...

like a hurricane, blowing old time rock and roll,
too late for a handshake, I roll over Beethoven,
thunder struck, roll over and over, doing the stray cat strut
to your ritual noise. Yeah. You really got a hold on me.
Yakety Yak. No more heroes. You cannot walk here,
sky pilot, paper plane, ancient name. You remind
me of Snoopy versus the Red Baron, but she's
not on the menu, spotlight, look, she's a phone sex girl
a pleasure victim, til the wheels fall off, a thrasher
positively 4th Street, toys in the attic,
too far gone, a telephone operator,
said so the daily news,
cry baby cry, a dirty birdie,
a dirty punk, chemicals and circuitry
diplomatic immunity, Uncle Albert, Admiral Halsey,
dust in the wind, driftwood, the undefeated, the voice,
don't let me be misunderstood, don't call me white,
the cover of the Rolling Stone, uncertain times under attack.

You ain't seen nothing yet,
keep on smilin' homesick again
the hunger within, the human highway
for what it's worth, friend or foe, fake friends
famous last words with no particular place to go,
first time I ever saw your face, fingernails
running up that hill riding the storm out,
ringing them bells breathless for my brown-eyed girl
give it all girl in the war feeling stronger every day,
you may call me the breeze, but I can't stop
the world dancing with myself, God wrote,
looking for you...record collector,
just like Jim Morrison did.

Thank you for the music, nothing is true,
I get around, I speak American, now you will pay
gimme gimme gimme, glory days, play my game
I walk the line, not what you wanted, I shall be free No. 10,
I'll meet you in Poland, my Blakean year, I won't back down,
If you want to sing out, sing out, rise above, Walt Whitman
won't mind, but if you leave me now, Jim Dandy
In the sweet bye and bye like the early Roman kings
it's not the spotlight, it's the end of the world
as we know it. Kansas City. Is there anybody out there
the night they drove Old Dixie down, just one fix,
just my imagination, keeps getting better,
just what I needed, remember I was vapor
respectable, reelin' in the years
with or without reason...

WHERE DO YOU WANT THIS KILLING DONE?
We speak with the language of war.
We laugh with the language of peace.
Knowing that all life is born of crisis,
punctuated by brief periods of solace,
we also know that after all is said and done,
we shall never cheat infinity, nor shall we
extinguish the mark of a single thought.

SHALL WE MEET AT THE GALLERY, IF I BRING FRIENDS?
We dance with the jubilee of victors.
We mock with the anger of Kleptos.
Mixing politics and art never batting an eye,
energized by duty and dreams from our youth,
we also know that after all is said and done,
we shall never cheat infinity, nor shall we
extinguish the mark of a single thought.

AFTER HARPER'S FERRY, WHY NOT A VISIT, THEN QUICK LUNCH?
We grace new fables with heavily nuanced figures of speech,
we spring along bouncy digits of man-made digital sound,
agreeing to violins, we love a glass of iced tea,
we matriculated to earn blue terrors in secret,
we also know that after all is said and done,
we shall never cheat infinity, nor shall we
extinguish the mark of a single
blind thought.

AREN'T YOU GLAD YOU ESCAPED FROM GEORGIA, AND THOSE PEOPLE?
We walk past more or less choices each year.
We run with the bulls into summer homes.
Knowing that all life is born of crisis,
punctuated by brief periods of solace,
we also know that after all is said and done,
we shall never cheat infinity, nor shall we
extinguish the mark of a single thought.

WHERE DO YOU WANT THIS KILLING DONE?
We speak with the language of war.
We laugh with the language of peace.
Knowing that all life is born of crisis,
punctuated by brief periods of solace,
we also know that after all is said and done,
we shall never cheat infinity, nor shall we
extinguish the mark of a single thought.

Hey Steveup for a visit? If so, do you know a route from DC to Philly which bypasses the toll road? I need a breather from this terror on TV, death in DC, and my own killer daily bread. With a nod to all those former glories we shared, I thought of you. I'll bring the recent Dylan release.

This window of opportunity will expire soon. If I don't hear from you today, for whatever reason, real or imagined, I'll count on nothing. Could this really be the end, stuck inside of DC with the Philly blues againas the four horsemen of an prima facie first blush apocalypse, the blue light special of tomorrow's plush sweaters, the four nineties of some square conspiring to compete with the circles we pick up in the streets and avenues, Steve, Len, Tim, and Gabriel pledging allegiance to the sounds of our own thumping hearts for which we cannot stand idly by...

Half deaf but playing it by ear,

GT

P.S. By the way, Bracken sent me his "screenplay". Seems I have a single speech towards the end, which of course fits in my mouth, but still I hesitate involving myself in this project since I despise laziness, especially that which lurks in MYSELF, so why should I allow Mr. Radical to exploit me for those questionable aims of his, just for the vanity of some screen time? What do you think? Have you read it? Would you like to have my lines?

Hey great! C'mon up...Don't know any toll-less routes offhand...just know the standard 95 route...would require some blue-highway meandering...but don't let that stop you! We've got Koreans in town today, so I might not have much of a chance to get to a phone...in any event, could you remind me of your phone# (gotta catch a bus, an egg-and-cheese sandwich, and a coffee, in that order)? Mine at work is 215.790.xxxx (feel free to leave a message if I'm not in.) After work and the obligatory Korean dinner tonight, I have no plans for the weekend.

Oh, fatter than ever, but the only time I hear that old handle is from the Nuthouse gang, and in particular, from you. That's cool though. Too bad "Space" was long taken before you got to AOL. Man, I had written you off for good after two phone calls (I think) were not returned and you blew me off a mere week before I thought I was traveling to Philly for a ballgame or hosting you here in DC. Whew! Glad to see you made it back into the scene. We'll certainly have to catch up.

Life is pretty much the same ole shake for us. I'm been doing freelance web design for some time now in addition to working on my own stuff when I can pull something together. What's your computer fix look like these days? Oh yeah, that reminds me, we were gonna lend you this old Mac Classic. Reckon now that you've resurfaced on AOL, you must have finally snagged a modern machine somehow somewhere.

We kept a rather low profile this holiday season, and for most of this year actually. We're definitely feeling our ages, even Sue, a wonderhorse for years of party thirst for rowdy times far beyond the call of duty. She still keeps close to her wine bottle on a nightly basis, but I have cut back my drinking to almost a monthly rather than the thrice weekly routine of the past decade or so. Of course food, bad greasy, chunk exploding food has a way of finding itself into my mouth, and it's not a pretty sight or a healthy feeling. I've really got to get myself on a healthier track. My pains are too mind-numbing to detail, and all these bloated beastly Hollywoodites are dropping like candied farley flies. Scary man. In this age of processed instant gratification, we have processed on an accelerated scale. The fork in the road has a greater fraction of us living longer well past what our grandparents expected and another greater fraction are dropping even earlier than diagnosed due to all the crap we pump through our eager holes and soft machine cylinders. No doubt I fall into the latter category. A complete mess, a distant cry from that young sprout glistening with undeniable untapped potential oh once upon a time.

See there, see here. Sob stories abound. You know you're gonna have to cough up some tales of the torrid past eventually, but yes, you have found me. It's good to have you back on the E-train. The phonecalls were fun but I'm usually far too self-conscious and enfeebled in telephone conversation unless I'm drunk (with its own accompanying pitfalls) but writing just flows like blood on the money most of the time. Besides I can get away with pretentious floods of irregular phrasings the oral traditions just don't usually allow, eh.

Yes indeed. Seattle's back on the map. Atlanta's a dying breed. The front office has lost its mind, and the bats grow cold in the clutch. Geez, Louise, what's there to say. You'll have to check out my web sites one of these days, if'n you've got enough machinepop. Since I don't know your condition I'll save the details of that stuff for later. Happy New Year and all that jazz. The neighborhood was crackling last night for about a half hour after the calendar flipped pages. I was suprised Sue didn't even roll over in bed because she was insisting that she wanted to watch the silver ball drop on TV, but I knew she wasn't going to make it since she was already nodding out at eleven.

Meanwhile I was standing in line debating whether I should sell my ticket for a profit and leave the lonesome scene with Sue & Ken instead. They insisted I stay to see the man who was nominated last year for a Nobel in Literature (believe it, it's true. He lost to a Italian septegenarian novelist whom I'd never heard of . . .)

Saw Bob Dylan in an up-close and personal venue a few weeks ago, early December, when he was in town to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Kennedy Center. I wasn't there THAT night, but we caught him at the 9:30 Club the night prior to the Kennedy. We'd stood in line for several hours in the cold gnarly AM when tickets went on sale earlier that month only to be among about three hundred turned away. On the second night of the show (he played two nights there to a thousand bobbing heads each), Sue, Ken Borden (an old friend of Bob Blumstein), and I stood again outside hoping to score three tix. Borden had successfully found entry the night before, benefactor of a simple twist of fate. An old friend of his carried an extra after his girlfriend bailed with sickness. Instead of drawing lots, we rationalized in which order each of us would be entitled to tickets as they surfaced. Three hours later the line hadn't moved and no tickets were within shouting distance. Finally I saw an old friend. Lo and behold, he had a friend trying to dump one. That was mine. Bought it for fifty bucks, fifteen over advance price. Borden and another chick we chatted up that night had paid eighty the night before. I owned the first ticket since Borden had seen Dylan the previous night, and Sue had gone to the Stones at the Air Arena (basketball/hockey) a few week prior, a gig I passed on even though the tickets were free. Sue, at my suggestion, then invited and was escorted by old pal Tom Howell who enjoyed himself much more than I possibly could have sitting in the stars and seeing nothing but smoke and hearing little but poorly packaged noise. Meanwhile I was standing in line debating whether I should sell my ticket for a profit and leave the lonesome scene with Sue & Ken instead. They insisted I stay to see the man who was nominated last year for a Nobel in Literature (believe it, it's true. He lost to a Italian septegenarian novelist whom I'd never heard of . . .)

Finally the line was moving. We hung together until I was frisked at the door. I waved goodbye. No more tickets. Sue was to get the next available entry, since she hadn't seen Bob, but now even that seemed a moot point. I had barely pushed my way into the place, among the last dozen in line, up cozy to the closest bar, when I hear Borden wailing and Sue jibberishly in joy waving arms akimbo. They'd made it. Two more tickets at fifty bucks a pop. We were all there snuggling among other Dylanistas, an older crowd speckled with the occasional fresh bunny or hardly harried hipster comfortably awed. Downside. Beers cost $4.50 apiece, and we all wanted at least three.

GT

P.S. Bob lived up to expectations again, spending most of the night banging out notes on a twelve string. This was my fourth time seeing Dylan. Worth every dime. Most money I've every spent on a ticket.

Have been scanning through some of the CSS white pages. While the hype is that this makes anyone a publisher, it again forces to the top of the cup those who believe anybody can be a programmer. This stuff is dense and prickly like sandspurs in a south Georgia grass patch.

How's that desperately seeking law degree game plan edging into your routines? Do you still want a MB-sized mail archive sent to your inbox? Any movement toward KPT gifting? Have you taken a vow of silence?

Sue is now sick with head runneth overs about the time I'm finally feeling fit again. How about some billy ball tonight? Is there any reason you should not take another swing at the dynastic power of billy, yet again? Now back to the sleeve of Steve (and any who see themselves in this song)...

Perhaps you can help me work up a successful resume to storm ClarkNET with the wisdom to know the difference. I wouldn't ask just anybody for advice on this topic, but gee willikers, you might actually be able to enhance my chances with that infomercial-worthy MASThead (Most Awesome Steve Taylor) approach of yours...

Below is something I typed into a guestbook this morning:Sweet knees and sauerkraut will cost you an arm and a leg
in the springtime next to the café down the street. You must
have a long friendlist and a good publicist to get away
with that many hits in the short time since the snowstorm
that didn't happen here happened somewhere else. I mean,
geez, Tim and Jennifer were gods in my book until they fell
silent. Clean up your act, or at least talk about the old
one, show a few pictures and get on with it...

but frisky is as frisky does. (In the field
where one puts where one is from, I wrote,
"from that part of me you can't quite finger...")

As you might surmize I am quite full of thyself
this morning, having finally fully recovered
from frocking weekend's binge boozer binge

and as usual Thursday brought that rush of
Gabmania I could only manage three or four days
a week once upon a time now down to two or three,

while you however seem an undiluted 24 seven.
You wear me out man. Go with it. You too will slow down,
but you're hardwired for burn speed and popular endurance

and will no doubt remain above the fray unless
some brain-nervous tick hits you like it stung
gentle giant Dave Clarke. It's a matter of record

that Ginsberg was a chatterbox, and now that I think of it,
he was the publicist who energized Kerouac into publication,
the front man for both Jack and Bill. So you know your role,

if you will only embrace it. What was that you were saying
about getting into the advertising racket a few wuthering
heights ago? And hey, every great writer, artist, pretender
needs an agent, a publicist, a whistle in the bucket.

Three weeks ago last Saturday over beers at the Lighthouse
you suggested I was pulling a Tim in my lackadaisial approach
to making myself known to the folks in charge of these things
like fame, fortune, and trophy women. Man, I say again,

self-trumpeting with a handshake and a dollar-sign
ain't my gig, even if I wanted it to be, but like Ginsberg's
talent for pulling the shat from a bull, it is yours.

But Ginsberg was able to cross the street, help his friends.
I'd like to think you are that capable as well, user friendly,
and graphically-interfaced. Okay, I'm muttering, but it's all

been said before. We can generate great things, it seems like
I move in great leaps when only you and I come together in unity
for even the shortest of times. Remember that first burst of web

sites concocted right there while you were FTPing for GSIS.
Well now, with our softball connection, confidence has soared,
production is over the top, and I've never felt better

(spirit if not body), yet it's no Boston to suggest
we still have yards to go for first down. Can you
blame me for reluctance to play both sides of ball,

the ball, although I've damn nearly died trying. In 1980
I wrote a line in a poem called Contrapuntus America:
"Two by two he sent them out, one to euphoria, one to disease..."

I've always needed a seconding voice. Wifewhile supportive
financially and technicallyhas never shown the slightest
interest in the work itself. THAT's what's needed, and for that
I'm utterly fated the diseased one. YOU may well be the euphoric one.
Verily, verily, bride lived on S. Taylor Street when I met her,
and there's no slighting the gods when they are speaking...

Am busy putting some Globetrotter-generated Javascript into my pages which activates the scrolling text on the Netscape status bar. I'm getting quite a rush publishing in that scrollby shooting some of my poetic gestures from the archived past. On the Tokyo Beach site, I used some Mishima quotes...

And lastly, here are some selected Dylan quotes I found on a website dedicated to his interviews. I was sparked by a Peter Burris e-mail logging some Nick Cave comments on Little Big Man Bob this very early morning:

Q: While on the road, how do you take care of your health and spirituality? What kinds of things do you do for yourself?

A: I try not to be a loafer. I don't work out. Maybe I'll ride a motorcycle or go horseback riding.

Q: Your son Jacob has a band called the Wallflowers. What do you think of his band?

A: His music is very humble. They have an impressible sound.

Q: Have you played any gigs together?

A: Just in the garage.

Q: What kind of music does he play?

A: I'm waiting for Neil Young to tell me.

I burst out in a huge elephant roar when I read this last line. No doubt a reference to NY's song Rust Never Sleeps, the 1980 song analyzing Johnny Rotten's impact on rock, the foundations of Elvis, and the premise that rock and roll will never die...

Q: Do current events, like the Oklahoma bombing, impact on your songwriting?

A: Chaos is everywhere: lawlessness, disorganization, misrule. I don't know if it impacts my songwriting like it use to. In the past few years, events have affected me and I've addressed them. But unless a song flows out naturally and doesn't have to be chaperoned, it just dissipates.

Q: Is America better or worse than, say, in the days of "The Times They are A-Changin'"?

A: I see pictures of the '50s, the '60s and the '70s and I see there was a difference. But I don't think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking there's some kind of change. But after you've been around awhile, they both seem unnatural. It seems like we're going in a straight line, but then you start seeing things that you've seen before. Haven't you experienced that? It seems we're going around in circles.

Q: When you look ahead now, do you still see a Slow Train Coming?

A: When I look ahead now, it's picked up quite a bit of speed. In fact, it's going like a freight train now.

Q: Some people who study behavior say that each of us is only expressing one unique thing through his entire life that we wanted to express when we were 17; I think you have proved them wrong over your career. So regarding yourself, what was your continuous concern during your career?

A: That I stayed honest, that I tried to be true, and didn't lie to myself or nobody else.

Q: Do you believe in fate or in destiny?

A: Mmm - I do, sure.

Q: Do you think all was written in advance, or are we responsible for each choice we do, even if things seem planned?

A: I do believe that things are planned for everyone of us. But I also believe that we have the will to change it at one time or another, although I'm not so sure about changing the end result.

Q: Do you feel the same as when you were a child, or do you feel you have changed?

A: Well, you know it's like the French say: Everything changes but it stays the same.

Now you must know where all this leads. Sounds like Bob is a Presbyterian Jew who's not quite sure the speed of a train makes any difference to a flock of angry birds. It leads back to the beginning. Oh well, as we say in hitherland, that's my story and I'm sticking with it...

Andy Schoengold wrote to Martine on Landry's list, "It's not Gertrude Stein that said "That's not writing, it's typing." It was Truman Capote and I believe it reffered to Jack Kerouac. Steinway At Tiffany's On The Road, anyone? I've addressed this to everyone on the list just to make you feel that much more embarrassed. Of course, I couldn't restrain myself from piling on, "Andy's absolutely right on all counts. I was gonna clean that up but since I hardly knew you, I passed on the opportunity. However, in Andy's case, I think both Gertrude and Truman, given the chance, may have said of Andy's blurb that it was poor typing since he misspelled referred.

Jack Kerouac on the other hand, might have opined of Andy's writing, that it should have been written reefered.

GT

"Don't ask me nuthing about nuthing, I just might tell you the truth."Bob Dylan

"There are some people one loves best,and others whom one would almost alwaysrather have as companions."Henrik Ibsen

Throw away that awful ticket stub I said. None of ushere need that can of starch. We know by heartthe meaning of fuss. Baby and the Pacifiersare playing a gig at the Bistro to start.Roaring inclinations.Singsoldier.

We worked out long wars, healing our oyster eyeswith the sweaty breath of evergreen night.That Lebanon dirt. Manic contoursagreeable to random odor,magnificently kite.We knew we couldn't write about it so we danced.

The proud crystalline swans of our age,obscuring shades,sex and stereotype,wars and rumors of wars,strikes, balks, and numb nuts,say hello every sort of way,wrapping like a nursing maiden's delicate handsaround the seat of our desires,our strategic pyres,in place of inspirational jeep: glancesjust aren't enough glands.

II.

She handledmy buttocks and its karma,so tight and competitively elite,as I cracked the bloody march.New Wave Morals.

Baby, the pacifiers,and our wormlike mirrorsresponding like thoroughbredstrangers caught in the loosening moods of dawnwere mere constructions of belief.I worried about my nature to be direct and innocent. It droveme to silence.

Her ravishionary spherical absolutesaroused my superior being,those victory moon bavarian breasts(honorarium of the beasts...)provoking the shape of things and substance,my superior being shy,companionless.

I danced. She rubbed her baubled pawsagain along the fine tight lines my cribdrew against hocus evening shadows,showing there can be no pretensedenying afresh the vital statistic,no silly discourteous cockteasestranding scalps and flirtinghumor, hunger, hoaryreligions that the idlerefuse to prosper.

We easily could havemade each other blank membersof a riper version, gamblingon last night's cruise into saneRichard Hell's visitation,a vanity cruise highlightingwinning girls wearing nothingbut furs,idols and onan. We became the ideaand did.

And I felt our mutual flash,hornspun and cursive,realizing the mediocritya poem of wordsofferssplashbeginning of the worldtigers and baboonsthunderbirds and the dung beetlebiting off more than a scientistcan chew,

open clash,the meaning of her friendship ritual.

She and HeRocking to and fromin pop style punctuated punkcontinuing to rock to and fromher unannounceable tokenssheer succulencewell pronouncedshocking my demands on reality,to and from, rubbingmy arm, now as importantas any zoneI could hope oversimplifyinglywould release me. Gracefuldancer bombardierbalancing virtueand free baggage. Likelierchoices bait our laughter.Especially in a gigof young punk artistsrocking.

She felt herself.Above the arms of her date.The three of us knew the heathen painsof fate which hauntheaven and the pawnbroker'spavilion. And white hawkish sweatersbulging through nervous nicotinedsmoky husksin the Bistro late hours.

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